Jessica
by Nimmireth
Summary: Don't know how to summarize...just read it...rating subject to change...review please
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything that belongs to Without a Trace. **

**Author's Note: This is my first Without a Trace fic, so be very nice to Nimmireth, yes? I made up a lot of stuff. So if it doesn't make sense, that would be the reason. No flames, constructive criticism…you know the drill… Enjoy…And REVIEW!**

_Jessica _

_By: Nimmireth_

Prologue

Saturday, March 25th 2006. It was 5:30 in the evening and seventeen year old Jessica Elise Spade was sitting on the edge of her bed, music stand in front of her, practicing a concerto on her shining sterling silver flute. Her light blue denim jeans were decorated in many different colored permanent markers and her short sleeved black top bore the words "Got Flute?" Her eyes were a beautiful pale blue and her hair was shoulder length, curly and blonde.

Suddenly, the sound of knocking came from outside her room. Jessica removed the flute from her lips and placed it on her lap, brushing her hair away from her face. "Yeah," she said as she looked at the door in front of her.

The door opened and a 51 year old woman, Jessica's mother, Theresa, with short, thin, blonde hair leaned into the room. "Dinner's almost ready," she said. "How does spaghetti sound to you?"

Jessica shrugged. "Fine, I guess."

"Okay," she said as she began to close the door. "Oh, by the way," she continued as she opened the door again. "Alexander called…again; he wanted to know when you can see him."

She sighed. "I call him later; I want to eat first," she said as she pulled out her flute case and began to clean her instrument.

"Okay, come on down when you're ready," her mother said. She closed the door and went back to the kitchen. Jessica concluded putting her flute away, put it in her white closet and went down to eat.

Dinner was silent at first with the clatter and clanking of forks hitting porcelain bowls. But then suddenly, Jessica's mother placed her fork next to her bowl and laid her hands on the table. "Jessi," she began. "I don't want you seeing Alexander anymore." Jessica froze for a second or two, but then continued to eat. "Jessi, did you hear me? I don't want you seeing him any—"

Jessica snapped her head up. "I heard you, mom," she said, not loudly but irritated.

Theresa nodded. "Okay," she said as she picked up her fork again and continued to eat. The two of them sat in silence for a moment. "You're going to the movies with Claire and Paige at 7:00, right?"

Jessica nodded. "Yep," she said as she continued to twirl her fork in her bowl of spaghetti.

After dinner, Jessica cleaned up and packed a brownish green messenger bag with money, a sweatshirt, a pair of sunglasses, her keys, cell phone and driver's license. She threw her bag around her shoulder and left the house.

She never returned home that night; she had just left, without a trace.


	2. 3 Hours Missing

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything that…oh BLAH! **

**Author's Note: This chapter is kind of short, but if it was in the format of the show then the prologue and this chapter would go together, so think of it that way…review please…**

_Jessica _

Chapter 1: 3 Hours Missing

Sunday, March 26th, 2006. Police squad cars were swarming the Spade residence. Special Agents Jack Malone and Vivian Johnson stood next to Theresa Spade, who was calm but had tears in her eyes. "And what time did she leave the house?" asked Malone.

Theresa sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Um, I think she left at around 6:30 to go to the movies. I thought everything would be okay; she goes out with her friends all the time."

Vivian nodded. "We'll find her, Ms. Spade. Now can you tell us if she was acting differently before this happened? Any change in personality, stuff like that?"

Theresa sighed. "Actually, yeah," she said.

"Ok," Jack said. "When did this start?"

"I'd say about three months ago. It was usually after a date with her boyfriend, Alexander Harris. She would come home all quiet, but then I would try to talk to her and she would snap at me; tell me that her date was none of my business."

"Does any time in particular stand out to you?" Jack asked.

Theresa sniffled and nodded. "Yeah…a couple weeks ago, actually."

_FLASHBACK_

_The door opened and Jessica walked through, carrying her messenger bag and wearing a blue jacket. She closed the door as her mom entered the room. "Hey, honey," she began. "How was it?" _

"_Fine," Jessica said as she turned around. It was just barely visible, but Theresa could clearly see a small circle of purple around Jessica's left eye. _

"_What's that?" Theresa asked, pointing at the spot. _

"_Nothing," Jessica told her as she put a hand up to her eye. _

"_Did Alex hit you?" she asked again, approaching Jessica. _

"_No," Jessica snapped. "He didn't do anything to me! God, mom, why do you always assume the worst about people!" she yelled. _

"_I'm sorry, Jess, I just want to know what that thing around your eye is," Theresa said, putting up her palms in defense._

"_It's a bruise!" _

"_Well, why do you have a bruise next to your eye?"_

"_I just bumped into something! Okay? God." _

"_Okay, okay…" Theresa continued to watch her daughter unpack her bag and hang up her coat. "Are you all right?" _

"_I'm fine. I'm going to bed," Jessica said. She then turned around while putting her bag around her shoulder, and walked up the stairs to her room. _

_END OF FLASHBACK _

Theresa crossed her arms over her chest. "She didn't talk to me for two days after that."

Jack nodded. "You still think that her boyfriend hit her?"

She sighed. "Alex seems like such a nice kid; I don't know what would make him do that, but, yeah, my gut tells me he did."

Jack nodded and patted her on the shoulder. "Okay. Thank you, Ms. Spade. Call us if you think of anything else."

And with that, Ms. Spade sat on the couch while the FBI agents continued to investigate and talk to each other.

Outside the house, Special Agents Martin Fitzgerald and Danny Taylor stood, conversing, when a green four door pulled up in front of the house. The door opened and Special Agent Samantha Spade stepped out of the vehicle. She looked over and saw Martin and Danny, slammed her door and rushed over to them. "What happened?" she asked rapidly.

"Well," Danny started. "Don't know the whole story yet, Jack is inside talking to her mother; Jessica Spade, 17, left the house last night and never came home."

Sam sighed. "Oh, god," she muttered to herself.

"Hey, you guys have the same last name; you related to them or something?" Martin asked.

Sam looked over at him, her eyes filled with worry and fear. "She's my little sister."


	3. 3 and a Half Hours Missing

**Disclaimer: I, Nimmireth, am in no way involved with…oh, f k it. Never mind… **

**Author's Note: I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN FOREVER! School…is a real drag…yeah. I hope this doesn't get a little too repetitious, but I made a lot of this stuff up; you could probably call this "Slightly AU." Just to clear a few things up. If it sounds like there's any JackSam or MartinSam in here, there isn't; so don't freak out and be like "OMG! Jack and Sam should hit the sack in this fic!" Sorry, not gonna happen. Enjoy this new chapter…REVIEW! REVIEW! I only have, like, 4; I WANT MORE REVIEWS! Please:D **

**Read the above... Always**

_Jessica _

Chapter 2: 3.5 Hours Missing

Danny and Martin glanced at her, brows furrowed. "What?" Danny asked. "You're sister?"

"You've never talked about her before," Martin said.

She shrugged. "You never asked," she replied. "Sorry." She turned away from Danny and Martin, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her black jacket, and rushed over to the house.

She entered through the forest green wooden front door and began to wander around the house, looking for somebody, anybody, that could tell her what exactly had happened. She glanced into the living room and noticed her mother sitting on the white couch, lightly stained with the color of spilled coffee, Jack and Vivian nearby.

Her mother looked up at her, tears still in her eyes. "Sam," she said.

Samantha walked into the room, her black heels making no noise against the beige carpeting. "Hi, mom," she said.

Theresa stood up and looked her daughter up and down. "I didn't think you would come," she said, wiping an eye.

"Nice to see you, too, mom," Sam replied, the tone of her voice filled with sarcasm. She approached her mother, Vivian and Jack turning to their conversation and gaping at them intently. Samantha stood in front of her mother for a moment, looking down at the ground. "What happened, mom?"

"Since when did you care about what happened to your sister?" she snapped quietly back.

"Mom, please don't start that now; I don't need it," Sam pleaded.

"Why? So you can completely ignore the fact that your sister has been missing since last night?" Theresa replied, raising her voice slightly.

"Mom," Sam demanded softly, gently placing her arms on her mother's shoulders. "What happened last night before Jessica left the house?"

Her mother glared at Sam for a millisecond before exhaling deeply. "She got home, went upstairs, pulled out her flute and practiced nonstop until we ate dinner. At 6:30, she left to go to the movies with her friends. I went to bed around 9. I woke up the next morning at 10 to go get her ready for her lesson, her bed was empty. I started freaking out; I called her cell, I called all her friends, her boyfriend, her flute teacher…nobody knows where she is," Theresa said, new, burning tears flowing from her eyes, staining her cheeks.

Sam nodded. "Thank you, mom," she turned to leave, but then decided against it. "I'll do everything I can to find her. I promise."

Theresa scoffed. "Right. Thanks; and if she's dead, you'll definitely be getting a Hallmark card from me," she jabbed, turning away from her older daughter and exiting the room.

Sam stared at her mother as she exited and groaned. She turned around and faced Vivian and Jack, who were still gazing at her. "You have a sister?" Vivian asked.

Sam sighed. "Half-sister," she told them. "We don't have the same father."

"She's 17," Jack pointed out.

"Oh, wow, Jack, how observant of you; I'm pretty sure you were told that when you were first assigned to the case," Sam commented.

"You're 33," he said. "Why such a big gap?"

Sam sighed. "I don't exactly feel like talking about that right now," she said.

"Fair enough," Jack said. Sam began to look down at the floor again, her hands returned to their spot in her pockets. Jack took notice and put a hand on her arm. "Come on," he began. "Let's go find your sister."

4.5 Hours Missing

Back at the headquarters, Sam, Danny, Martin, and Vivian gathered around a rectangular table in front of a white, dry erase board with a red line running along the lower region. They all began to sit down in some chairs when Jack approached the white board and hung a school picture of Jessica into the holders. "Jessica Elise Spade," he began. "Seventeen years old, was last seen at 6:30 last night by her mother, claimed she left to go see a movie with some friends, and was never seen again."

Vivian, Danny, Martin and Sam stared at Jack with rapt attentiveness as he wrote 6:30 underneath the red line in the middle of the board and above the red line wrote "left house to go to movies?" diagonally and drew a line underneath the words. "Martin, Danny, what'd you get from the neighbors?"

"Nothing much," Danny replied, pulling out his little black notebook and flipping through the pages. "She's a nice kid, very bright, always kind to everybody, babysat the neighbor's kids whenever they needed her, yada yada yada."

"Okay," Jack nodded. "Did they notice anything suspicious or unusual lately?"

"Not really," Martin answered. "Apparently she kept to herself, didn't associate with them a lot."

"Although," Danny began. "The neighbor who lived next door, Mrs. Livingston, kept on talking about how she hadn't babysat her daughter, Cassie, in a long time."

"Did she say why Jessica wasn't able to?" Jack wondered.

"Can't say for sure; she mentioned a lot of reasons," Danny replied. "Homework, ACT classes, flute lessons."

"Sounds like she's just making excuses," Martin said.

"Or maybe she's just a busy girl," Jack scolded, glaring at him. He then glanced over at Sam, who seemed to not be offended by Martin's rude comment; she just sat there, staring at her fingers, tapping them against the light brown of the table. "Is that all you got from them?"

"Pretty much," Danny told him.

"Okay," Jack said. "Viv, did you get the names of the girls she was supposed to go to the movies with?"

"Yeah," she affirmed, opening her notebook, as well. "Claire Donovan and Paige Emerson."

"Okay, I want you to go talk to them. Martin, Danny, I want you to look for any paroled or released predators who prefer teenage girls. Sam?"

Sam's head shot up at the sound of Jack calling her name. "Yeah?"

He lifted up his hand and motioned with his index finger and his middle finger to approach him. "Come with me," he said.

She nodded just as everyone else stood up and went to perform the tasks that Jack had asked of them. Sam collected some paperwork that she had and replaced them in a manila folder. She picked them up and walked over to Jack. "So," she began. "Where are we off to?"

"Back to the house," he told her. "Look through her room, find things that we might or might not need to know," he explained.

She nodded. "Oh," she said. "Okay."

5 Hours Missing

Once they were in the car and driving to the Spade household, Jack briefly looked over at Sam on occasion, who was sitting in the passenger seat and staring out the window, her forehead on it. After a while he finally sighed and spoke to her. "All right, Sam, what's going on?"

She glared over in his direction. "You mean other than the fact that my sister has gone missing?"

"I mean why haven't you said a word since we got back to headquarters? Do you even care about this?"

"Of course I care! She's my sister!"

"Then what's going on?" Jack wondered.

She sighed. "It's…just the whole situation, I guess," she said. "I almost hate to say this, but I barely know her."

"Why's that?" he asked.

She quietly cleared her throat. "Look," she began. "When my mother was eighteen, she decided that she and her boyfriend were ready; nine months later, I was born. Fifteen years later she was raped on her way home from work and eight and a half months later came Jessica. I was sixteen when she was born and I didn't really want her around. Two years later, I left the house. Quite frankly, I don't even know if she knows about me."

Jack took a deep breath as he made the attempt to take in Sam's story. "So, that's the big secret?"

"Pretty much," she told him, replacing her forehead against the glass window.

"Oh, I see." He looked over at Sam one last time before continuing to drive and didn't press her any further.

They finally arrived at the house and knocked on the front door. Theresa Spade opened the door. "Agent Malone," she said as she nodded to Jack. She then glanced over at her daughter. "Sam."

"Hi," Sam said, looking at the ground.

"Have you found my daughter?" she asked.

"Not yet," Jack told her. "We just want to go through her room; see if we can find anything useful, if that would be okay with you?"

She stood there for a moment, pondering whether or not she should allow them to search through her missing daughter's room. She shrugged. "Fine," she said reluctantly, opening the door a little more to permit the two FBI agents inside the house. "Not sure what you're going to find, though; she's a good kid."

Sam and Jack entered the house and Theresa directed them up the stairs towards Jessica's room. They arrived at a closed white wooden door with a medium-sized picture of Jessica, wearing a gold medal and holding her flute diagonally across her torso. "I hope this helps," she said as she turned back to the steps and walked downstairs.

They both turned to look at the picture on the door. "I hope so, too," Sam said. Jack opened the door to the view of a queen sized bed with rainbow tie-dyed sheets, pillows, and covers with a sliver music stand at the end of the bed. Her flute case was on the bed along with a large red blanket that said "Interlochen" on it. "Well," Sam said. "Looks like she's really dedicated."

"I see that," Jack said as he walked over to her white desk on the other side of the room.

Sam stared at the edge of the bed where the flute case and music stand were currently placed. She envisioned her little sister, sitting there, flute pressed to her lips, fingers gracefully moving up and down the keys of her shining instrument.

Jack stared at Jessica's desk; the books and binders on it were stacked nicely while pieces of paper were strewn everywhere else. He searched through some of her binders and textbooks. "She's smart, too," he commented. "AP Physics, English 3 Honors, AP Calculus, AP US History, French 5 Honors; Jeez, we didn't have these classes when _I_ was a Junior."

"Maybe they did and you just didn't think you were smart enough to take them," Sam quipped, looking at him with a smirk plastered on her face.

"And did you?" Jack asked, glaring at her with a grin.

"Uh," she began as she struggled to remember what classes she took. "AP US History, I think, but that's it," she told him as she wandered over to her sister's closet.

She opened the doors to discover all of her clothes, neatly folded, stacked on shelves and drawers, and hanging on hangers. Sam looked toward the top of the closet, and on a shelf stood a locked green safe with a bronze key sitting next to it. Sam reached up, grabbed the safe and placed it on Jessica's bed. She then retrieved the key from the shelf and unlocked the safe with it. Sam opened the door to the safe and in it were pictures, a diary and a brown paper bag. She pulled out the diary first and laid it on the bed before pulling out the pictures and looking through them.

The pictures were of Jessica, among many other girls, wearing light blue polo shirts, navy blue shorts and light blue knee socks. "Wow," Sam said. "I have never seen a more interesting uniform in my life," she continued as she passed Jack the pictures of Jessica at Interlochen Arts Camp.

He took the pictures and looked through them. "At least she had a good time," he observed.

Sam pulled out the brown paper bag, opened it, and pulled out the contents; little wax paper bags with a white powdery substance inside. Sam stared at them, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Hey, Jack, take a look at this," Sam called. He looked up and he reacted the same way as she did. "Something tells me that this isn't powdered sugar or parmesan cheese," she joked.

"Well, well, well," Jack said, taking one of the wax packages. "Looks like your sister wasn't so perfect after all."


	4. 8 Hours Missing

**Disclaimer**: I don't even know why I bother anymore…

**Author's note**: I'm not even going to apologize for not updating in forever, just read, enjoy, review and no flames. Same drill every time. Although, I would like some more reviews (a.k.a. A LOT more reviews.).

_Jessica _

Chapter 3: 8 Hours Missing

Back at FBI headquarters, Sam and Jack sat at the table in front of the white board, the contents of Jessica's safe in front of them labeled in plastic evidence bags. Danny and Martin walked up to the table from their cubicles. "Well," Danny began. "No major serial rapists or murderers paroled recently, but there is one guy who was just paroled on an assault charge; Maurice DeMartini, a.k.a. "Spider", beat up 20 year old Casey Morrison on her way home from work, apparently she owed him money," he hinted.

"Like drug money?" Sam asked him.

Danny nodded. "Yep; she was 1500 in debt and couldn't pay up, so he took his anger out on her," he concluded as he threw the manila file onto the table. Sam picked up the folder and opened it, searching through everything that it contained.

The first thing she saw was the mug shot of the guy, holding the black sign with white writing in front of his chest, a tattoo of a black widow spider on the back of his right hand. He had spiky brown hair, deep blue eyes with an angry look on his face that went very well with the long red scar running down the left side of his neck. She could tell that he was tall and well built, and she didn't like that. She sighed and looked at the police reports. Casey had been beat up pretty badly; broken ribs, concussion, fractured skull, twisted ankle, and plenty of scratches and cuts to boot. "Well, he's not a very nice guy," Sam deduced out loud.

"Yeah, no kidding," Martin said. "She was in the hospital for almost a week before they let her out, and even after that she went to live with a friend of hers until she was ready to move back into her own apartment."

Sam nodded. "Does Viv know about any of this?"

"Not yet," Danny said. "She's talking to Claire and Paige about Jessica; I doubt they know anything about what happened."

8.5 Hours Missing 

"Jessica's a great person," the curly red-headed Paige Emerson told Vivian. "She's nice to everyone and she's in, like, all AP classes; she's a genius."

"Is that so?" Vivian asked.

Paige nodded, but Vivian noticed that the brunette stayed quiet, staring down at her twiddling hands. "Is that true Claire?"

Claire looked up at her with her pale, sparkling blue eyes. She nodded. "Yeah, she's in all of my classes and gets really good grades," she told Vivian, and looked back down at her hands.

Vivian eyed the girl carefully. "Is there something you're not telling me, Claire?"

Claire looked back up at her for a millisecond and then shrugged. "No, not really."

"Not really?" Vivian said, raising an eyebrow.

Claire sighed. "Okay, fine. Jess…Jessi was using."

"What!" Paige wondered as she stared down at her friend, the shock obvious in her tone of voice. "How do you know?"

Claire brushed her long hair out of her face. "Because…one day…she…came to class high. On what, I have no clue, but she sure had all the symptoms."

_FLASHBACK _

"_Hey, Jess! How was your weekend?" Claire asked Jessica as she walked into the band room to give her friend a hug. _

_Immediately, Claire knew something was up; Jessica was extremely jittery and her eyes were bloodshot. There was a very large bruise on her cheek and a small little scratch just above her eyelid. "I-I-I-I-I-It was great!" She stammered and spoke extremely rapidly. "Nev-Never better! I-I mean, it's not like I couldn't hang out with my friends or anything, but I had to stay with Alex the entire time, y-you know? I-I-I mean no freedom for myself or anything, right?" _

_Claire's brow furrowed as she walked up to Jessica and placed her hands on her shoulders to try and calm her down. "Jess, what are you talking about?" Claire wondered._

_Jessica continued to stutter and speak faster than humanly possible as she began to pace. "All I wanted to do was hang out with my friends, but NO! No! Absolutely not! It was hang out with the boyfriend and his friends or fear his wrath, which I got anyway. But not this time! No, not this time. He will be sorry. He will be sorry for everything that he's done!" _

"_Jess, what's going on? Are you high or something?" Claire said as she began to follow her around the room. _

_Jess continued to ignore Claire. "The last straw! Seriously, he's gotten on my last nerve! He can't do this to me! No, of course he can't. He's going to pay Dammit! HE'S GOING TO PAY!" _

_She pushed her music stand onto the floor, all of her sheet music and solo books falling out of her black band folder and onto the floor. _

_Everyone began to stare at the both of them. All eyeballs were on Claire and Jessica as Claire picked up Jessica's music and stand and replaced it to where it once was. She then grabbed Jessica by the shoulders and stared at her intently. "Are you done yet?" Claire asked, impatient and annoyed. _

_Jessica looked around the room, her eyes still bloodshot but she had calmed down. After realizing what she had done, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and brushed her hand through her hair. "Yeah," she began. "I'm sorry. I'm ready for class now," she said as she sat back down and picked up her flute. _

_END OF FLASHBACK _

Claire sighed. "She scared the crap out of me. Jessica would never snap like that; it was really freaky."

Vivian nodded as she wrote this down in her little black notebook where she kept all of her notes. "When did this happen?"

"Sometime last week, I think."

"Okay," Vivian said as she looked back up at the two girls. "Anything else?"

Claire looked at the table again, her eyes squinted a little, as if reluctant to say anything else. "Well," she began. Vivian brought her eyes back over to the girl. "I noticed that her eyes were red a lot. I couldn't tell if she was crying or if it was dope. But then I finally noticed the cuts and bruises and such. It never occurred to me that her boyfriend might be…abusive or anything until she started rambling that day. Then I put two and two together and tried to talk to her about it."

"What did she say?" Vivian asked, scribbling this new information into her notebook.

"'Just drop it, Claire; it's none of your business.' Her words exactly," Claire told Viv.

"And you didn't notice this at all?" Vivian asked Paige.

Paige shook her head. "No, of course not. I never would have thought that Jess would have anything to do with drugs. Ever since I met her she talked about how she wouldn't give into peer pressure or anything."

"You think her boyfriend was pressuring her?"

Silence. Paige shrugged and Claire stared at the ground. Vivian glanced over at the brunette. "Claire?"

Claire groaned. "I was suspicious, okay? I never pegged Alex to be a junkie, but then I saw him hanging out with a bunch of gang bangers snorting up and stuff. It was disgusting. I told Jess about him, but she didn't seem to do anything; she just sat there and…just…sat there, like it was nothing."

Vivian nodded again and jotted down a few things before asking. "So, you guys were going to the movies at seven, right?" She asked the girls.

Claire and Paige both looked up at her, brows furrowed. "What are you talking about?" asked Claire.

Now it was Vivian's turned to give the girls a confused expression. "Jessica's mom said that she left the house at 6:30 to go to the movies with you guys."

They both looked at each other, confusion still written all across their faces, and shook their heads. "Paige and I had a gymnastics meet that night," Claire said, glancing back over at Vivian. "We were all the way out in Queens; we couldn't have gone to the movies with her if we tried."


End file.
